Books

Comprised of essays by geologists, ecologists, and historians, this study examines the development of Los Angeles as an example of the complex interactions between urban planning and nature.

Often referred to as “the Big Tomato,” Sacramento is a city whose makeup is significantly more complex than its agriculture-based sobriquet implies. In River City and Valley Life, the contributors reveal the major transformations to the natural and built environment that have shaped Sacramento and its suburbs, residents, politics, and economics throughout its history. This environmental history provides a compelling case study of urban and suburban development in California and the American West.

A Negotiated Landscape examines the transformation of San Francisco’s iconic waterfront from the eve of its decline in 1950 to the turn of the millennium.

The Coeur d’Alenes, a twenty-five by ten mile portion of the Idaho Panhandle, is home to one of the most productive mining districts in world history. Its legacy also includes environmental pollution on an epic scale. Living with Lead untangles the costs and benefits of a century of mining, milling, and smelting in a small western city and the region that surrounds it.

An original and in-depth history of the 1969 Santa Barbara, CA oil spill. Teresa Sabol Spezio provides a background of water pollution control, government oversight of federally funded projects, and chemical detection methods in place prior to the spill. She then shows how scientists and politicians used public outrage over the spill to implement wide-ranging changes to federal environmental and science policy, and demonstrates the advancements to offshore oil drilling, pollution technology, and water protection law that resulted from these actions.